We are now one week past the Autumn Equinox, the day defined as having an equal number of hours of sunlight and moonlight. Autumn’s twin is the Vernal Equinox in March. The opposite of these days of equality are the Summer and Winter solstices when unequal hours of daylight or darkness rule the skies. The least favorite of these orbital phenomena for me is this time of waning hours of daylight when each day that passes presents less sunshine and more hours of darkness.
It has always been this way for me, even way back in my youth I hated the short days of Fall and Winter because, like most of my generation, I preferred being out in wider spaces than a house provided. Now I am even less fond of the season because I ride a bike, and nighttime riding is always more precarious than when the sun shines brightly overhead. Also, it marks colder and often wetter weather. And in the little bit of refresher research I did on this subject, I found the answer to something that has piqued my curiosity for years, but I never took the time to fully investigate: Pomona, Calif.
I first heard the name Pomona in a Bugs Bunny cartoon oh-so-many decades ago when the wascally wabbit was calling off cities, in the cadenced voice of a train conductor, along the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains of Southern California: Azusa, Pomona, Cu-Cu-Cucamonga. All exotic names to the ear and all real towns. Over the years Pomona popped up repeatedly, such as when I became aware that our Cal Poly San Luis Obispo had a sister campus in Pomona, a place I visited one day back in 1990 as the editor of the Greenfield News when the KCHS girls’ volleyball team played in a championship game in the campus gymnasium. Twenty years before that I came to know Pomona because a family friend from Greenfield made annual trips to the Winter Nationals dragster competition at the Pomona Drag Strip and would usually make the time, with wife Deneen, to visit the Wilson home in Corona.
Anyhoo, to bring this to an end, what I found out is that the Autumn Equinox was observed by farmers as when darkness was coming, the end of abundance, so they paid homage to, you guessed it, Pomona, the Roman Goddess of fruits and orchards in hopes she would be kind to them when the longer growing season came again. And there you have it.
***
A quick little sidebar here. In the early morning hours of the equinox, I was — as were others probably — awakened by the sound of rain falling. It was enough of a surprise to me, following a couple of days of 100-degree temperatures, that I got up and stood on the porch to watch as it began to wane and finally stop. I figured because I was up, I may as well do something constructive, so I made a pot of coffee, fired up the old word processor and began typing what you just read.
Part of this writing process includes not just caffeine but also nicotine, and after about 10 minutes of tapping away on the keyboard, I reached for my bulk pipe tobacco and Bugler rolling papers and deftly constructed a nice round cigarette. But that was as far as I got because my Bic lighter was out of fuel, and with no other flame in the building but the stove, I decided to take a ride to the 7-Eleven on Broadway and remedy the situation.
That is all a long build-up to say that at 2:30 in the morning, with wet streets reflecting light from all sources and only three or four vehicles moving in town, it can be a wonderfully peaceful time from the seat of a bicycle. With the city asleep, the whole of Broadway was mine to cruise without the constant alertness of business hours when drivers, often with cell phone at their ear, pop out of their cars without looking for a bike rolling toward their open door, or small cars parked next to behemoth pickups that have to inch out into traffic and couldn’t see an 18-wheeler coming down the road, let alone a single bike rider.
And just as I returned to 410 Seventh St. and stepped up on the porch, it began to rain again, which somehow made the whole experience even better.
***
Most of the moneymaking ventures of our Grifter-in-Chief don’t come within my bailiwick. I don’t buy Trump sneakers or collection cards or bit coins or pay a million bucks to sit in his presence in his Florida monstrosity or apply for his credit cards or any of his other ways of cashing in on the Oval Office. But I do get concerned about the Bibles mandatory in Oklahoma schools because I have two grandkids in that system. These Bibles must contain the Constitution, Declaration of Independence and the Pledge of Allegiance and, of course, such books are only available, at $60 a pop, through a Trump-owned publishing company.
The problem is the Constitution does not contain Amendments 11 through 17, so if parents want their child to know about these amendments, it is up to them to supply the information. Slavery and women’s right to vote are included in the missing, which is no surprise when dealing with racist and misogynistic nationalists.
***
I was set to write a nice revue of a wonderful event, which took place last Saturday evening, but after a couple warnings to keep my politics out of any comments — and knowing at this point readers are aware of my political leanings (see above) — I figure with that cat out of the bag, any event sponsor is liable to come under fire. So, in future I’ll forego any columns about such things.
Take care. Peace.
